For his fearless campaign against bullying, Dalton McGuinty gets a gold star for effort. But the Premier’s final mark depends on how he handles his next test, coming soon to a school near you.

In today’s Ontario, generic anti-bullying clubs are political motherhood. The real flashpoint is anti-homophobia clubs, where high school students can show solidarity with gay classmates.

That’s why the Liberal government is pressing ahead with legislation forcing publicly-funded schools to approve “gay-straight alliances” — although, mindful of Catholic sensitivities, alternative names were left open to negotiation.

By taking a flexible approach to a volatile issue that blends sexuality with constitutionality (no, we haven’t been able to wish away Separate School boards since 1867), McGuinty did the right thing. But he placed the onus on Catholic educators to respond in the right way.

Now, the other shoe has dropped. And the Premier is being wrong-footed by Catholic educators who are kicking sand in his face.

Their written response blends bullying with bombast. In 12 tortuous pages, the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association mouths all the right platitudes about our common humanity and spirituality, without dignifying gays by ever actually calling them “gay.”

If Catholic trustees can’t bring themselves to use the word “gay” — ever — it’s no surprise that they won’t agree to gay-straight alliances. I just expected a little more charity and clarity amidst the verbosity and obstinacy of their latest diktat.

No use of the word “gay.” No use of the apparently loaded word “rainbow” — banned by some schools last year — lest trustees open their minds to the full spectrum of light.

The Catholic trustees want any new clubs to be called “Respecting Difference” groups. Which strikes many school kids as underscoring their differences — and thus undermining their commonality and solidarity.

And the trustees are blatantly ignoring the letter and spirit of the legislation. It hasn’t escaped notice at Queen’s Park that their document is a declaration of defiance against the single-issue clubs mandated by McGuinty. You can’t skirt an anti-homophobia club by creating an anti-bullying club as a catch-all.

Catholic trustees are missing the forest for the trees — and worrying whether they are growing straight or warped. Yet the church has a history of living with two seemingly opposed ideas at the same time: It preaches abstinence until marriage, while Separate School boards provide sex education for high school kids — not just because it’s the law of the land, but the reality we live in (teenage pregnancies, convents and orphanages no longer being the preferred outcomes for sexual sinners).

So if the church can countenance sex education, why obsess about a few gay-straight alliance clubs (which don’t confer the seal of approval on gay sex)?

Now, using the language of a witch hunt, the trustees warn that “activism” or “advocacy” of “anything that is not in accord with the Catholic faith foundation of the school” is banned. What a way to intimidate school kids for daring to show solidarity against bullies: No activism that strays from catechism.

Oh, and no discussion of personal “gender identity.” So if you’ve already come out of the closet, you’ll have to go back in during lunch hour club meetings. Or perhaps put that lunch bag over your head?

Fearing Sodom and Gomorrah in the blessed province of Ontario, Catholic trustees are making a spectacle of themselves. By turning the spotlight onto these small, localized solidarity clubs for well-meaning school kids, they are resurrecting a latter-day version of the Inquisition, where those who challenged the doctrine of the faith were, um, bullied into submission.

Rather than seek an enlightened, Jesuitical resolution, the trustees are tying themselves in theological knots. And placing themselves on a collision course with the province’s self-declared anti-bullying Premier — only the second Catholic ever elected to the position.

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